It’s that time of year again: The day when we all pretend that every mother is a shining saint, a glorious martyr, a perfect vision of feminine virtue that wraps up all of our ideals of womanhood with a pretty ink bow. Fun! And also way too much pressure on moms and kids. Moms are just human beings doing their best. Or not so much.
No, really, some moms are pure nightmares, and the movies are a great way to process that unfortunate fact. Your mother might be challenging, but did she lock you in the attic for years on end? Arrange to have you brainwashed by communists? Invite you to an orgy? If not, then hey—you’re doing OK…or at least you’re entitled to feel a little better about your likely highly dysfunctional upbringing. And that is the magic of movies. Let’s take a look, then, at the best worst moms in cinema history.
Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Frances Fisher), Titanic
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There’s a single moment in the movie Titanic, when she’s helping Rose (Kate Winslet) with her corset, during which we’re invited to feel some sympathy for Frances Fisher’s widowed, penniless aristocrat. A woman’s choices then were so much more limited than today, and her unrelenting quest to marry her daughter off to the boorish-but-rich Cal feels, in that brief scene, like a grasp at survival for the both of them. That’s all we get, though. The rest of the film sees her as a snide, judgmental, class-obsessed bully with no interest in Rose’s wishes (even if she does serve up the film’s best and driest snark). In the final act, Rose would rather leap into the frozen North Atlantic with a mediocre sketch artist than spend another minute with dear old mum, and I can’t say that I blame her.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Paramount+
Corinne Dollenganger (Victoria Tennant), Flowers in the Attic
It begins with what seems like an impossible choice: suddenly widowed, Corinne seeks refuge with her wealthy-but-whackadoo mother, who insists that the four kids be kept sequestered in a single room with access to the attic. Seeing no other choice, Corinne agrees, but soon becomes accustomed to the luxuriant (I guess) lifestyle afforded her so long as she ignores her kids pretty much entirely. The increasingly pale and sickly children are soon caught up in family history involving incest and poison, all while mom cavorts downstairs. Louise Fletcher’s grandmother Olivia isn’t an overwhelmingly maternal presence, either, so perhaps Corinne can only take so much of the blame.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Hoopla
Margaret White (Piper Laurie), Carrie
I grew up in the orbit of evangelical relatives, so while Carrie’s mom might be a bit extreme, her behavior is hardly wildly out of line for religious fanatics raising children, then or now. A terrifying slice of Stephen King-via-Brian De Palma, Carrie speaks to queer people particularly as a story about growing up with a parent who thinks you’re evil even while you’re being bullied at school for being a weirdo, at least in the eyes of kids with surprisingly easy access to pig’s blood. If “dirty pillows” strikes you as a reasonable synonym for “breasts,” you’re probably a terrible parent, and had better hope your child doesn’t develop telekinetic abilities.
Where to stream: Showtime
Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway), Mommie Dearest
We’ll never be exactly sure how much of camp classic Mommie Dearest reflects the parenting style of real-life cinema icon Joan Crawford, but the movie version shan’t be taking home any mother-of-the-year prizes, even if it’s all heightened to the point that it’s a little hard to take seriously. Crawford here is a physically and verbally abusive alcoholic, who treats Christina as a convenient emotional accessory when she’s not berating the girl for not sharing mom’s obsessive triggers. I’ll say this for Joan: she’s not wrong about wire hangers, even if she needs to calm the fuck down about it.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury), The Manchurian Candidate
Though most often remembered as sharp but kindly middle-aged sleuth Jessica Fletcher, Lansbury reinvented herself over and over again during a long career, and gives one of cinema’s most chilling performances here, as the calculating mother of the titular candidate. Eleanor Iselin manipulates her Korean War-veteran son (Laurence Harvey) in order to bolster the political career of her husband, and she’s perfectly content to have her son brainwashed in the process. The fraught relationship between the two is played less as one between a mother and son, and more as though the two were lovers, a dramatic choice which lends the whole thing an added layer of incestuous discomfort.
Where to stream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Pluto, Freevee
Mary Jones (Mo’Nique), Precious
I won’t spend a ton of time on Precious, not because it’s not worth discussing, and not because Mo’Nique didn’t deserve her Oscar, but only because its “bad mom” elements are as deep and dark as they come. Mary Lee Johnston is abusive in every way imaginable, including by facilitating the rape of her daughter, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe).
Where to stream: HBO Max
Violet Venable (Katherine Hepburn), Suddenly, Last Summer
You could make a case, I suppose, that Violet Veneble just wants to protect the reputation of her dead son, Sebastian, who died in a small Spanish town in the company of his cousin, Catherine. Her methods are extreme: she’s used her money to convince various doctors to keep Catherine locked away, and is on the verge of having her lobotomized, all to make sure that nobody ever finds out that Sebastian was gay, and in Spain almost entirely to get laid. Mrs. Veneble’s embarrassment about her son is distasteful, for sure, but she also displays an uncomfortable obsession with her son, bordering on the Oedipal—he, in turn, used her to attract men. Complexities of their relationship aside, lobotomizing relatives is not the way to support your queer kids.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman), The Others
It’s impossible to entirely hate Grace; the woman’s been through, after all, an awful lot. Her husband went off to war (WWII, to be precise), leaving her with the kids in an enormous and remote old house on the Channel Island of Jersey, only recently not occupied by the Nazis. Grace is a raw nerve from almost the first moment we see her, demanding strict adherence to rules one moment and absolutely flipping out the next, all while locking away her photosensitive (or are they?) kids in the darkened house. While the movie beautifully offers the character (appropriately) grace, if not redemption, we learn of the true extent of her unforgivable transgressions before the end.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), Friday the 13th
Look, some would argue that Pamela’s devotion to her kid (going on a murder spree to avenge his death) is evidence that she’s not only not a bad mother, but a great one. But we don’t really have any evidence of that, only of the murder spree of unrelated teenagers spurred by her kid’s accidental drowning (who also, presumably, have parents who are now sad). This is speculation, but I have a feeling that Mrs. Voorhees wasn’t entirely stable to begin with, and, regardless, killing people who kinda resemble the people who you blame for the death of your kid (who isn’t even really dead) is hardly a healthy or commendable way to process grief.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Paramount+
Mrs. Vale (Gladys Cooper), Now, Voyager
One of the coolest people who ever navigated Hollywood, Bette Davis, becomes an uptight, shy, and perpetually nervous nerd, beaten down by a mom who doesn’t mind reminding her, at every turn, that she was an unwanted child who became a burdensome adult. When Davis’ Charlotte finally does start to break from her shell, and away from her mother’s influence, Mrs. Davis sweeps in to make her feel like absolute shit, once again. Of course, the enforced co-dependence between the two carries on even after mom’s death; spitballing here, but maybe telling your kids how worthless they are all the time isn’t a great way to parent.
Where to stream: HBO Max
Kate McCallister (Catherine O’Hara), Home Alone
Don’t leave your kid at home. TWICE. And expect any parenting prizes. I’m sure that helping to raise a family in a white upper-middle class suburb, with enough money to pack an entire family on a plane to Paris, is incredibly challenging…but forgetting your kids multiple times (depending on how you count the various low-budget sequels) is ridiculous.
Where to stream: Starz
Lady Tremaine (Eleanor Audley), Cinderella
We don’t know her by her name, of course, but by her well-earned title of “wicked stepmother.” Upon the death of Cinderella’s father, Lady Tremaine decides that the interests of her biological daughters are all that she cares about, and so sends our heroine to work as a drudge in the kitchen, proceeding to sabotage her every attempt at happiness. It all backfires on her, of course, but not before we’re reminded that stepmothers are mothers and stepchildren are children…so don’t send them off to live in the basement…or you’ll be sorry.
Where to stream: Disney+
Mother (Kim Hye-ja), Mother
When Bong Joon-Ho’s unnamed widow learns that her son has been arrested for murder, the very protective mom decides that she will do anything to clear him of the charge and prove him innocent. Like, anything, including commit murder herself. Though there’s something to be said for that kind of motherly devotion, and she’s one you’d want in your corner, we also learn that she’s compensating, in part, for some truly horrific actions taken when her son was a child. Motherly devotion ought to have healthier limits.
Where to stream: The Roku Channel, Vudu, Hoopla, Redbox, Plex
Monica Swinton (Frances O’Connor), A.I. Artificial Intelligence
David is taken in by the Swinton family after their son contracts an illness that puts him into a coma; he’s a Mecha, a prototype robot capable of emotion who immediately imprints upon his new mom. Once the Swinton’s biological son is better, though, David finds himself not only surplus to requirements, but a nuisance and an object of jealousy. So, even though she feels a little guilty about it, Monica dumps him in the woods, leading him on a centuries-long journey to find something like the love of the mother who abandoned him.
Where to stream: Disney+
Sally (Jillian Bell), Cowboys
Sally’s endless misgendering of her trans son (Sasha Knight) sends the boy and his dad, Troy (Steve Zahn) off on an adventure into the Montana wilderness. Sally not only refuses to accept her kid, who very clearly has his shit together more thoroughly than either of his parents, she even refuses to allow him to indulge in anything even remotely “masculine” for fear that seeing cowboy movies will…make him more trans, I guess? Unrepentant transphobes make pretty terrible parents, is the lesson.
Where to stream: Hulu
Umma (MeeWha Alana Lee), Umma
Everything seems to be going rather well for Korean immigrant Amanda (Sandra Oh) and her daughter, Chrissy (Fivel Stewart), the two of them living together on a rural, and seemingly idyllic farm, away from modern technology. That’s all until Amanda receives the ashes of her umma, her mother, with whom she’d severed all ties following a deeply abusive childhood. While we learn of the challenges that Umma had faced coming to the United States as a single mother with no English and no sense of community, her various abuses…including electric shock…don’t get a pass. The movie is a story of generational trauma in a horror context, involving Amanda’s deep fear of becoming her mother, as she literally comes to be possessed by her.
Where to stream: Netflix
Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman), Autumn Sonata
Like so many of Ingmar Bergman’s films, the tone here is chilly until it isn’t, the reunion between mother and daughter all repressed emotion and studies politeness until the repressed emotions boil over. Ingrid Bergman’s Charlotte is a bad mother, to be sure: she’s a world-class pianist, wildly self-absorbed with very little interest in anything beyond her self and her career. Her daughter Eve (Liv Ullmann), on the other hand, cares for her disabled sister while in a passionless marriage in the shadow of her great mother. The story isn’t really about Charlotte’s parenting skills (which are, again, nearly nonexistent), instead dealing with the ways in which these two women have hurt each other, and the extent to which communication and reconciliation are possible.
Where to stream: HBO Max, The Criterion Channel
Helene McReady (Amy Ryan), Gone Baby Gone
Foul-mouthed drug mule Helene wins points here for genuinely wanting to make right the horrible mess that she’s made of her daughter’s life; Helene had stolen $130,000 from a drug kingpin, an action that lead to her daughter Amanda being kidnapped (kind of…it’s a twisty-turny type of film). Even aside from putting her daughter in danger, though, we’re also privy to some of Helen’s direct parenting style…and that ain’t great either. So much so that the private detectives hired to find the missing girl come to doubt whether they’re even doing the right thing. All that having been said, the great Amy Ryan earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance, so bad mom doesn’t necessarily equal bad actress.
Where to stream: HBO Max
Erica Sayers (Barbara Hershey), Black Swan
In Darren Aronofsky’s near-horror movie Black Swan, Erica Sayers is one of the most dramatic cinematic examples of the resentful parent; someone who feels that they gave up their own dreams in order to raise a kid…and that kid had better be worth it, goddammit. Erica is overprotective in moments, but dramatically overbearing at all times, and it’s clear that the ultimate breakdown of her daughter, Nina (Natalie Portman), has almost everything to do with her mother’s controlling grip.
Where to stream: Hulu
Vera Cosgrove (Elizabeth Moody), Dead Alive
The controlling, overbearing mother is a trope that’s fairly well played out, but this Peter Jackson classic from 1992 goes further, doubtless, than audiences were expecting. Here, Vera is the mother to shy Lionel (Timothy Balme), who finally meets a woman who’s interested in him. Stalker Vera follows them to the zoo on their date—only to be bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey that leaves her with a kind of zombie rabies. She dies, but is reborn with a ravenous taste for flesh which, of course, Lionel is forced to deal with. He’s so under her thumb that, even after her death, he’s cleaning up after her.
Where to stream: Digital rental (Braindead is an alternate title)
Hélène (Isabelle Huppert), Ma Mère
It’s a mother-son movie that’s also an erotic drama, and French at that, so there’s no way that there are not going to be plenty of uncomfortable moments. The movie starts with Hélène discussing her promiscuity with her son Pierre (Louis Garrel) before inviting him to an orgy. Which is, at the risk of sounding excessively prudish, something that probably shouldn’t occur outside of stepmom porn. That’s not nearly the end of it, but I’ll leave off here.
Where to stream: Digital rental